On the ninth of July 1540, a group of senior English clergymen declared the marriage between King Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves invalid. The reasons were two: the marriage had never been consummated, and Anne had been betrothed to another man years before, which technically nullified her consent to marry the king. Anne herself was not called to testify. She was informed of the decision only after it had already been made.
When the royal envoys delivered the news, the woman who had been Queen of England for exactly six months showed, according to the official report, surprising calm, with no change in countenance. She offered no resistance. Instead, she sat down and wrote a letter to her brother, the Duke of Cleves, telling him she accepted the king’s decision and wished to remain in England as his sister and loyal subject. She even returned her wedding ring, asking that it be broken as a thing of no strength or value.
It was a meekness born of hard calculation, and it became her passport to safety. To understand how she arrived at that moment, and why she survived where others had lost everything, her story must begin in the German lands from which she came. Anne was born in 1515 in Düsseldorf, capital of the Duchy of Cleves, part of the Holy Roman Empire. She was the daughter of Duke John III of Cleves and Mary of Jülich-Berg.
Her family ruled a Protestant-leaning state in open opposition to the Catholic hegemony of Emperor Charles V. Hers was a sober, practical upbringing, overseen by her mother, who prepared her to be a competent German noblewoman. Unlike the ladies of the English court, who were educated in music and dance, Anne learned to read and write in German and excelled in domestic tasks, sewing, cooking, and household management. She was not taught to play instruments, sing, or dance, skills considered frivolous in her homeland but highly valued at the lavish Tudor court.
This austere education reflected the character of her region, which had been shaped by the influence of the Protestant Reformation. At the age of eleven, Anne was betrothed to Francis, son of the Duke of Lorraine, as part of the dynastic alliances that governed Renaissance Europe. That arrangement was eventually cancelled when both reached marriageable age. By the end of the 1530s, Anne remained single, a princess available in the volatile matrimonial market of the continent.
Meanwhile, in England, King Henry VIII was once again a widower in search of a wife. In 1537, his third consort, Jane Seymour, had died shortly after finally giving him the male heir he desperately wanted, Prince Edward. Obsessed with securing the succession and obtaining another son for the Tudor dynasty, Henry decided to marry for a fourth time. But this time, the choice carried a strong political component.
England, separated from the Church of Rome since 1534, was isolated and threatened by the Catholic powers of France and the empire of Charles V. The king’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, saw the reformist German provinces as a natural ally. He set his sights on Anne of Cleves, whose family, now led by her brother, Duke William, headed a bloc of Protestant states defying Catholic imperial power. A union with Anne offered Henry a strategic alliance with the Lutheran princes of Germany, strengthening England’s position on the European board.
Cromwell negotiated the marriage diligently. To ensure the bride’s appearance, Henry sent his court painter, Hans Holbein the Younger, to paint both Anne and her sister Amalia. The king’s instruction was clear: the portrait must be true to reality, without flattery or embellishment. Holbein complied, producing a portrait of Anne with a serene face, dressed in the rich garments of the Cleves style.
Upon seeing the image, Henry declared himself satisfied. Anne appeared attractive and suitable for the position. Convinced by Holbein’s brush and the favorable reports of his ambassadors, the king gave the green light to the marriage agreement. In October 1539, the marriage treaty between England and Cleves was signed.
Anne was twenty-four; Henry was forty-eight, with a notable difference in age and, as would soon become evident, in temperament as well. Anne set off on the long journey to her new kingdom in the autumn of 1539. After a winter crossing, she landed at Dover at the end of December. By Henry’s order, meetings were organized along the way to welcome her.
But the king, impatient and curious, decided to orchestrate a romantic surprise inspired by the chivalric novels he loved. On the first of January 1540, Henry rode to Rochester, where Anne was resting before her official entry into London. Wearing a cloak and a mask, he entered his betrothed’s chambers in disguise, eager to recreate the courtly ritual of love at first sight. The scene was far from a fairy tale.
Anne, untrained in such courtly games, did not recognize the king under his disguise and reacted with confusion. According to witnesses, Henry approached and greeted her effusively, even attempting to kiss her. But the German princess was startled. She pushed him away, upset by the lack of ceremony, and demanded to know who this bold man was.
It was a blow to the monarch’s pride, a man accustomed to flattery and the norms of French gallantry. Frustrated and wounded in his vanity, Henry abruptly left the meeting, muttering in disdain the phrase that would echo through history: I like her not. That fateful first impression doomed the king’s mood toward Anne before she even reached the altar. In the days that followed, Henry tried to stop what he already considered a mistake.
He protested privately that Anne was not as fair as had been proclaimed, and lamented before his courtiers that if it were not for the advanced state of negotiations and the risk of offending the Duchy of Cleves, he would not proceed with the marriage. He blamed Holbein for deceiving him with an overly flattering portrait, and his advisers, especially Cromwell, for exaggerating Anne’s charms. In a scornful tone, Henry reportedly compared the young woman to a Flemish draft animal. I have brought over a great Flanders mare, he is said to have remarked crudely, referring to his new betrothed.
It is a bitter irony that the king, then obese, with a waist of over 130 centimeters and suffering from leg ulcers, should complain about Anne’s appearance. Despite his reluctance, Henry found himself trapped by reasons of state. Breaking the engagement at that stage could alienate the Germans and damage his prestige. Resigned, and still hoping for the best, the king formally met Anne at Greenwich in the first days of 1540, no longer in disguise, and proceeded with the wedding preparations.
Anne of Cleves married Henry VIII on the sixth of January 1540 at Greenwich Palace, in a lavish ceremony befitting Tudor royalty. The new queen consort, dressed in rich brocades and jewels, wore on her wedding ring an inscription full of hope: God send me well to keep. Behind the public pomp, however, the couple’s private life was heading toward disaster. Henry, displeased since their first meeting, showed coldness toward Anne.
The wedding night confirmed his worst fears. The next morning, the king confessed angrily to Thomas Cromwell that he had not consummated the marriage. I liked her a little before, but now I like her much less, Henry snapped, admitting he had been unable to fulfill his conjugal duties. According to Cromwell’s own account, his majesty declared he felt no desire for Anne, and that if he tried to lie with her, his body would not respond.
Henry even shared humiliating details, claiming that in his view Anne’s body was flabby and that she smelled unpleasant, comments that revealed more about the monarch’s wounded pride than about Anne’s actual appearance. The young queen seemed bewildered by the rejection. Raised to obey, she may not have fully understood what Henry expected of her. She did not speak English and was unfamiliar with many court customs, which hindered any intimacy.
Nevertheless, Anne remained publicly silent. Privately, her ladies and attendants noticed her distress. Carl Harst, the envoy from Cleves, reported that Anne appeared frightened by her position and took the matter with great heaviness. She had reason to worry.
She knew that Catherine of Aragon had died in exile after her divorce, and that Anne Boleyn had been executed after losing royal favor. Anne’s attitude toward Henry himself was one of cautious submission. Wisely, she chose not to oppose the king’s will. In the months that followed, Henry virtually avoided his new wife and began seeking a way to rid himself of the inconvenient marriage.
His attention had already turned to a lady-in-waiting at court, the young and lively Katherine Howard, niece of the powerful Duke of Norfolk. Furthermore, the geopolitical situation that had once made the alliance with Cleves desirable had shifted. France and the empire no longer seemed so united, reducing the urgency of a religious pact with the Germans. Determined to annul the marriage, Henry ordered Cromwell to find a legal solution as soon as possible.
At the beginning of July 1540, just six months after the wedding, Anne was sent away from court under various pretexts while an ecclesiastical council prepared its verdict. When the annulment was declared, Anne’s calm acceptance of her fate won her a surprising reward. Henry, relieved to avoid an international scandal, praised her submissive attitude. Finally free of his unwanted marriage, the king wed Katherine Howard on the twenty-eighth of July 1540, the very same day that Thomas Cromwell, scapegoat for the failed match, was executed in the Tower of London.
Cromwell’s fall was a brutal reminder of royal caprice. While one of the most powerful men in the kingdom lost his head for having arranged the unfortunate union, Anne of Cleves, the rejected one, emerged as a survivor. Anne might have found herself in a precarious position after the annulment, banished or imprisoned as had happened to others. But she managed to turn a marital defeat into a personal triumph.
Henry VIII, grateful for her obedience and eager to maintain good relations with the Duchy of Cleves, granted her a generous settlement. He officially named her King’s sister, giving her precedence at court just below the queen and the king’s daughters. She received an annual pension of five hundred pounds and several noble estates, including Richmond Palace, a former royal residence, and Hever Castle, which had once belonged to the Boleyn family. Overnight, Anne became one of the richest and most independent women in England, with her own household, staff at her service, and the respect due to a princess.
Far from lamenting her fate, Madame of Cleves, as she was now called, seemed to adapt to her new life with relief. The French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, observed in August 1540 that Anne appeared more cheerful than ever. She wears a great variety of gowns and spends her time in sports and pastimes, he noted. Freed from Henry’s marital expectations, the former queen flourished.
She learned to ride horses, to hunt, to enjoy banquets, and even to dance, an activity she had never practiced before. She began to learn some English, breaking the language barrier that had isolated her at first. Henry, for his part, was cordial with her both in public and private. He would occasionally visit her at her properties, treating her in effect as an honorary sister.
The mutual courtesy between them became, in a way, a happy and unusual ending for such a mismatched couple. Anne remained in England for the rest of her life, never returning to Germany. At just twenty-five years old in 1540, she enjoyed an unusual degree of personal freedom. She was young, wealthy, unmarried, and under the protection of the most powerful king in the region.
Some rumors suggested that Anne still held hopes of returning to the throne. Her own brother, Duke William of Cleves, even formally proposed that his sister marry the king again, but Henry showed little interest. Anne herself did not insist on becoming queen again. She enjoyed her peculiar status and perhaps understood that she had come out ahead in the end.
Even so, Anne continued to be part of the extended royal family circle. In January 1541, Henry invited her to spend the holidays at court at Hampton Court Palace. There, Anne had to pay homage to the young new queen, Katherine Howard, who had ironically served as Anne’s lady-in-waiting during her brief reign. The chronicles say that both women danced together in the great hall while Henry looked on, pleased, perhaps enjoying the moment when his former and his brand-new wife displayed good harmony.
It was a political gesture of reconciliation. The king presented Anne as a loyal sister, and Katherine showed humility by treating the former queen with respect. That improbable scene of courtly coexistence highlighted the extraordinary nature of Anne of Cleves’s situation. She had gone from being rejected to becoming an honorary royal relative, something without precedent in Tudor history.
One of the most notable aspects of Anne’s later life was her relationship with Henry’s daughters, particularly Princess Mary Tudor. When Anne arrived in England, Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, was about twenty-three, just nine years younger than Anne herself, placing them in a similar generation. While nominally Anne became her stepmother for a brief period, in practice their relationship was more like that of two highborn ladies. Despite their religious differences, Mary being a devout Catholic and Anne coming from a Protestant background, it was said that they got along surprisingly well.
Mary may have appreciated the kindness Anne showed her during her brief time as queen, in contrast to the tensions she had endured with previous stepmothers. Moreover, Anne never attempted to usurp the place of Mary’s mother or interfere with her rights, which undoubtedly made cordial relations easier. Anne also had some contact with Elizabeth, Henry’s younger daughter by Anne Boleyn, though more limited, since Elizabeth was still a child during the years Anne frequented the court. Even so, Anne held sufficient affection for both princesses that when she later wrote her will, she left them gifts and asked Mary and Elizabeth to look after some of her servants after her death, a detail that demonstrates the sincere closeness she had developed with Henry’s daughters.
When Henry VIII died in 1547, Anne remained in England under the reign of the young Edward VI. During this period, she largely withdrew from public life, residing quietly on her estates. Her financial situation was somewhat affected by political shifts; the reformist government of Edward reduced some of her incomes, but she never completely lost favor. Upon Edward’s death in 1553, Mary Tudor ascended the throne as Mary I.
With the former princess now queen, Anne of Cleves regained ceremonial prominence. Despite her Protestant past, she did not hesitate to adapt to the new times. She attended Mary’s triumphant entry into London and accompanied the new sovereign during her coronation procession, standing with dignity beside Princess Elizabeth in a place of honor. As a sign of loyalty and personal diplomacy, Anne even publicly embraced Catholicism, attending mass according to the Roman rite in order to remain on the right side of the devout queen.
Mary I, for her part, initially showed Anne great respect, lavishing her with attention and granting her honors at court. Anne responded by sending congratulations on key occasions, such as expressing her joy when Mary announced her marriage to Philip II of Spain in 1554. However, with time, dark clouds appeared over this friendship. Mary’s unpopular marriage to Philip and the Protestant rebellion of Thomas Wyatt in 1554 placed many reformist-leaning courtiers under suspicion.
Malicious rumors suggested that Anne of Cleves, due to her closeness with Princess Elizabeth, Mary’s Protestant half-sister, and her connections to German nobles, might have held sympathies for the rebel cause. No evidence was ever presented against Anne, and she was never formally accused of treason. But it seems that Mary I began to keep her at a distance following the insurrection. In the final years of Mary’s reign, Anne was no longer frequently invited to court and chose a more secluded life in the countryside, far from courtly intrigues.
Even so, there was no open enmity between the two women, who officially maintained cordial relations. Anne of Cleves outlived Henry VIII and most of the king’s other wives. After nearly two decades living in England as a distinguished and independent lady, she fell ill during the years 1556 and 1557. She passed away peacefully on the sixteenth of July 1557 at her residence in Chelsea, at the age of forty-one.
In a final gesture of respect, Queen Mary I ordered that Anne be buried with near royal honors. Her funeral, conducted according to the Catholic rite, was held with great pomp at Westminster Abbey, where, near the high altar, her remains lie to this day. Anne of Cleves is the only wife of Henry VIII to be buried in the traditional resting place of English monarchs. Mary, despite any past reservations, showed through this tribute that Anne still held a special place in her affection until the very end.
History has come to smile upon Anne of Cleves. For centuries, she was ridiculed by chroniclers and ambassadors as the ugly wife of Henry VIII, unfairly labeled in popular memory as the Flanders mare. Yet in a twist of fate, what once seemed misfortune turned into blessing. By humbly accepting the annulment, Anne saved her life and prospered.
She was the only one of Henry VIII’s six wives who truly came out victorious. She not only kept her head on her shoulders, literally, but lived in comfort with title, wealth, and the freedom to be herself. Holinshed’s Chronicles praised her as a lady of right commendable regard, courteous, gentle, a good housekeeper, and very bountiful to her servants. Anne of Cleves earned dignity and respect where others lost everything.
Henry VIII may have once said with disdain, I like her not. But history, in time, has come to like Anne of Cleves very much indeed.
